Neverwinter Nights 2 First Details

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We talk to Obsidian Entertainment and BioWare about the upcoming RPG sequel.

By Tal Blevins

Although we've known that Neverwinter Nights 2 has been in development for a while now, it wasn't until this week that Atari, Obsidian and BioWare officially announced that the title was in development. Being fans of the original game, we talked to Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart and Producer Darren Monahan from Obsidian Entertainment and BioWare Joint CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about the sequel, and learned the first details about what we can expect from the upcoming RPG. Note that although the sequel has been in the planning stages for a while now, the game has only been in development for a few weeks, so a lot of details are still up in the air at this point.

While the original Neverwinter Nights was developed by BioWare, the sequel is being created by upstart Obsidian Entertainment. Although they're a relatively new development studio, the Obsidian ranks are filled with RPG veterans as much of the team is comprised of several former employees of Interplay's role-playing division Black Isle Studios, including Urquhart and Monahan. This was the studio behind Icewind Dale, which was powered by the Baldur's Gate engine, so it makes sense that Obsidian is working with BioWare again. As you may already know, Obsidian is also at the reins of Knights of the Old Republic 2, another game that was originally developed by BioWare.

So what is Obsidian Entertainment's role in the game building process? Well basically, they're the workhorses on the project. Obsidian will be overlooking all design, art and engine improvements, as well as being responsible for the story, the content and pretty much everything else in the game. The team is currently comprised of ten people, including Producer Darren Monahan -- who was a producer on the Icewind Dale and Dark Alliance series -- as well as Art Director Marc Holmes -- who was the Art Director on the original Neverwinter Nights. It's still early in the development process at this time, but as Neverwinter Nights 2 gets into full swing, the team will grow considerably.

Obsidian will be doing the lion's share of the development work on the sequel, but BioWare will have a hand in the development of Neverwinter Nights 2. They have already provided Obsidian with the Aurora engine to build the game on. In addition, since they are most familiar with the Aurora engine, they will be providing technical assistance in using the engine to its fullest, and will also be looking over Obsidian's milestones and giving input to keep the project in line with the vision of the original. As Greg Zeschuk put it, "We've got a good relationship with the folks at Obsidian and we definitely want to see them succeed in making Neverwinter Nights 2 a great game; we see it -- in part at least -- as still being a BioWare project."

While the sequel will be built on the same engine as the original, it will be a highly enhanced version of the Aurora engine, and you can expect some graphical updates to take advantage of current hardware. "Basically we're going to take the original Neverwinter Nights and for all intents and purposes gut certain parts of it and totally rewrite them for things like DX 9, newer hardware and effects like all the new pixel shaders," Darren Monahan told us.